Nick Cave

After goth pioneers the Birthday Party called it quits in 1983, singer/songwriter Nick Cave assembled the Bad Seeds, a post-punk supergroup featuring former Birthday Party guitarist Mick Harvey on drums, ex-Magazine bassist Barry Adamson, and Einstürzende Neubauten guitarist Blixa Bargeld. With the Bad Seeds, Cave continued to explore his obsessions with religion, death, love, America, and violence with a bizarre, sometimes self-consciously eclectic hybrid of blues, gospel, rock, and arty post-punk, although in a more subdued fashion than his work with the Birthday Party. Cave also allowed his literary aspirations to come to the forefront; the lyrics are narrative prose, heavy on literary allusions and myth-making, and take some inspiration from Leonard Cohen. Cave's gloomy lyrics, dark musical arrangements, and deep baritone voice recall the albums of Scott Walker, who also obsessed over death and love with a frightening passion. However, Cave brings a hefty amount of post-punk experimentalism to Walker's epic dark pop.

Cave released his first album with the Bad Seeds, From Her to Eternity, in 1984, which contained a noteworthy cover of Elvis Presley's "In the Ghetto," foreshadowing much of Cave's style and subject matter on the follow-up The Firstborn Is Dead. Kicking Against the Pricks, an all-covers album, broke the band in England with the help of "The Singer," which hit number one on the U.K. independent charts. The album also strengthened Cave's reputation as an original interpreter and a vocal stylist of note. Following 1986's Your Funeral...My Trial, Cave took a two-year hiatus from recording, partially to appear in Wim Wenders' 1987 film Wings of Desire, and then returned with Tender Prey, which featured Cramps guitarist Kid Congo Powers and Cave's strongest vocal performance up to that point.

Cave's productivity picked up immensely over the next two years after he kicked a heroin habit. He had two books (1988's King Ink, a collection of lyrics, plays, and prose, and 1989's And the A** Saw the Angel, a novel) published; appeared in the 1989 Australian film Ghosts...of the Civil Dead as a prisoner; recorded a soundtrack to the film with Harvey and Bargeld; and released 1990's The Good Son, his most relaxed, quiet album. Cave received his due as one of the leading figures in alternative rock when he was invited to perform on the 1994 edition of the Lollapalooza tour to promote his Let Love In album. Early in 1996, he released Murder Ballads, a collection of songs about murder. Murder Ballads became Cave's most commercially successful album to date, and, with typical perversity, he followed it with the introspective and personal The Boatman's Call in early 1997. A spoken word release, Secret Life of the Love Song, followed in 1999.

Two years later, a rejuvenated Cave teamed up with the Bad Seeds once again for the piano-laden No More Shall We Part. Nocturama was released in 2003, and the double-album Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus followed by the end of 2004. After touring in support of the album throughout 2005, Cave embarked on a new project called Grinderman with Bad Seeds members Warren Ellis, Martyn Casey, and Jim Sclavunos. The group's self-titled debut was released in 2007, the same year Cave was inducted into Australia's ARIA Hall of Fame. In 2008, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds released Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!! It was followed by a second Grinderman recordings -- entitled Grinderman II, followed by a world tour and the band's breakup announced by Cave on-stage in December of 2011. Cave penned the screenplay for director John Hillcoat's 2012 bootlegging film Lawless, which also featured a score composed by Cave and Warren Ellis. The duo had previously collaborated on scores for The Proposition, The Road, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, and Days of Grace. In February of 2013, Cave and a streamlined Bad Seeds broke their five-year silence with the release of Push the Sky Away. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine & Steve Huey, Rovi

I am a late-adopter of the Nick Cave fandom. A couple goth friends insisted I listened to a couple songs and I have been hopelessly addicted ever since. I love the way he doesn't sing pretty, he sings meaningfully, in the proper method and tone the song requires and his lyrics are like reading a good book, with phrasing no one else could pull off. He is a genius, no question.

heard Johnny Cash sing Mercy Seat (til that point had never heard of Nick Cave) - it was all over after that- went out and bought everything from Nick Cave and haven't look back since. he's destroyed my ears in concert, to the point where they felt like they were bleeding, but worth the pain- God Bless you, Nick Cave.

one of my all time favorite musicians... from birthday party to grinderman. author, poet, artist... & of course a stronge stage presences that can't be denied. from murder tales to lost faith... every work better then the last!

"He's down here for your soul" said the frog eyed man. He then slammed his cup of tea, opium tea, on the meal trolley and put on a deep sea divers suit. "I said things I did not mean to say, oh mama." he muffled with his head pushing through the neck of the suit.

Lottie was standing on the edge of the quarry the guy with the funny eyes. looking down at the dark water. She scolded herself, "Had there been a dead man in her bed?"

amen kriegmachtforrestjones: wow man. I though that I was sincere, but you put me to shame.hope that i meet you someday, if not in this world, then the next...

6 years ago

billthode7

My first experience with Nick Cave was Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus in '04. One of the greatest (2) albums I own. Man, between slow stuff like Carry Me and fast paced Nature Boy this album just rocks non stop.

6 years ago

kriegmacht

Red Right Hand....Mercy Seat....and not to mention "The Murder Ballads", really do you need to say anything else?

Nick is a genius among men and a Goliath of Literary device. Better than this is the truth that he is sincere. Sincerity among accomplished artists is rare and rarer still is Nick Cave. I love you like a brother Nick. We will meet somewhere in eternity I have no doubt. Forrest

6 years ago

roxypeskofsky

nick cave has the power to command your attention when he sings a song. He has the voice of wisdom and knowledge. I trust his experiance of what he sings and how his heart is connected to his lyrics.